


H U N G E R

by ValiantBarnes (Cimila)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Blood and Violence, Cannibalism, Emotional Manipulation, Explicit Sexual Content, Fae & Fairies, Hedonism, M/M, Manipulation, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, Murder, POV Alternating, POV Third Person Limited, Pining, Seelie Court, Unconventional Format, Unhealthy Relationships, Unseelie Court, kinda??, slight body horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 01:32:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9049825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cimila/pseuds/ValiantBarnes
Summary: There's power in his blood, enough to subsume a dying forest god, and Armitage Hux returns to his home changed, forever, because now - oh, hunger burns through the marrow of his bones, urging him on and on, demanding more, always more.
So he eats.
But he's more than ravenous hunger and blood splattered gore. Or he was, once. There was a boy who only wanted to belong, wanted someone to look at him, and see him, and care. But he, too, was devoured. Until-
Ren.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Minilolli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minilolli/gifts).



> Io Saturnalia!!!!!!! Happy Kylux Secret Santa time!!!!!
> 
> This is for Minilolli/Space-girlfriends over at tumblr! I was super excited when I got your prompt!! I wasn't sure what I was gonna do at first, and played with some ideas, and suddenly I'd drawn bits of the intro, and then it was 6:43 am and I'd written over eight thousand words, whoops. (Massive thanks to Dom and Xan who put up with me during the creation of this thing, ily)
> 
> I have spent a lot of time on this, and I really like it. Hopefully the formatting turned out ok. And I (really super hope) that my secret santa likes it! Merry holiday season :)
> 
> (also please, for the love of god, read the tags. they're there for a reason, and the reason is so y'all don't walk into messes like with unaware) (also also the next parts won't be up for a few days because i'm gonna be busy af babes, but dw, it's mostly written!)

There is a child in the forest. It does not notice, at first. But then the child keeps walking, wandering further and further away from the edges, into the dark spaces purposefully forgotten. Luminescent eyes open, watch the child get closer. Closer still.

 

It asks, voice quiet and lilting and wrong enough to set the skin on an adult pricking. But Armitage Hux is not as adult; he’s just a lonely child. Oh so lovely, and oh so lonely.

“Where are you?” Armitage asks, drawing closer to the voice, to the line he does not know exists, and of which he will pass the point of no return, soon enough.

 

The thing does not mention the animal skeletons, all that it has eaten for a millennia. Armitage doesn’t notice them, doesn’t see their decomposing forms, the skeletons lost in the gloom. The voice echos through the otherwise empty clearing, luring the boy closer, past the vines, to the very edge of the precipice.

“Why are you down here?” Armitage asks, on top of the boulders, above the mushrooms and bones and teeth. For all that he is a child, he is smart. Should he climb down, he may not be able to climb back up - no way to escape, should this be a trap. Armitage is wary of traps; he has been fooled too often in his life already, to walk into one willingly.

 

The thing sighs out, sounding lonely and pained and sad. Sounding confused, as though It can’t fathom why It’s been thrown away, discarded, and forgotten. It’s voice is melodic, but so wrong. Staining the things tone are the voices of all those who’ve come before Armitage, those who once sustained It. The multifaceted echos curling through its voice are inaudible to human ears, but Armitage hears them. Hears them, and hears nothing of the warning that others would hear. He only hears the confusion, the sadness, not the horror that lurks beneath, the pain of those who have come before.

For all of his smarts, in the end Armitage Hux is is still a child. Just a lonely boy, who understands the pain of being unwanted all too well.

“My Father doesn’t want me, either.” He confides, starting to climb down the boulders. He jumps the last foot, reckless as all children are. He stumbles upon landing, falls to his knees. Skins them. The scent of blood fills the clearing, but the thing doesn’t move, for all it’s hunger grows. There are rules, always rules, which it must follow.

 

It asks the boy, who stands, and wipes a hand over his bloody knee. Flowers have fallen onto the otherwise barren dirt, bright with life, and specks of blood. Colourful, even in this dark, unwanted part of the forest. The boy had carried them in his pockets, from parts unknown. It hasn’t seen flowers since they condemned him to this dark, decaying clearing. The fungi that confine It here do not count, for It hates the very thought of them.

“Yes, it doesn’t hurt. I’m not a child.” He says, but his voice wavers, betraying the lie. There are tears in his eyes, as he collects the flowers. He puts them back in his pockets, and the thing smiles, the ghastly sight hidden in shadows and darkness. This boy, small and slight and, perhaps, serendipitous.

 

It stalks around the outside of the clearing, not sliding between shadows so much as bringing them with It. They cling to It, concealing as It circles the boy, as It weighs the options before It, and the consequence of each action, spiralling out from this moment.

“Yes. My father says it’s stupid, but I like them. My mother used to take me to pick flowers. They have names, don’t you know.” Armitage tells him, firmly, and the thing smiles wider. What a lovely gift that has fallen into his prison. Food, it had thought, scenting the boy through the forest. And then he’d drawn closer, and closer, and it’d been able to taste the otherness swirling around the child. This was better than such a small meal, which would only make It hunger for more. This was opportunity.

 

The boy looks at him, and as the moment stretches, as the boy hesitates, It wonders if he’s been warned already. They tell their spawn young, It knows, because names are power, to them. You have to be careful, so careful, about names with blood that smells like that. It’s starting to resign itself to the loss of this opportunity, starting to salivate at the meal, however small.

And then the boy opens his mouth, and seals his fate. Their fate.

“I’m Armitage Eoin Hux.” Oh, sweet boy, It thinks to itself as the power of a true name rushes through It. Thinks, but doesn’t say. The boy is proud, it can tell already.

“Who are you? Where are you?” He asks, looking around the small, barren clearing. The sun does not reach here - very little reaches here. Except for this boy, this sweet gift.

 

The boy giggles, full of life. Maybe he’s giggling because no one has ever said his name like that before, giggling because it feels odd, different, his body reacting to such power in the hands of another. The boy doesn’t know yet, but he will. The thing grins, ghastly and grotesque and hidden for now.

“Do you want to play hide and go seek?” The boy asks, pretty eyes gazing around the clearing, searching for it. It laughs. The noise rings around the clearing, melodic and harsh by turns, bouncing off bare rock and old, carved trees. The boy doesn’t flinch away from the chilling sound, doesn’t even appear to notice that there’s anything wrong with the laughter at all. How fortuitous. Not all would be suitable for what it has planned, but this boy is perfect.

Little Armitage Eoin Hux, who keeps flowers in his pockets, whose blood taints the air, who doesn’t flinch from things hidden in the dark, but asks them to play.

 

It has no preference. Whichever is chosen, the outcome will be the same. Armitage Eoin Hux giggles again, and will likely do so every time It uses his name. He does not know better, after all. It wonders, for a moment, that the boy’s parents should be so neglectful of their child. Their kind know better than most to let their offspring go into ancient woods, giving their names to shadows. It’s sure that they will be distraught to find what’s happened to their son, but by then it will be too late.

“I’ll count, first. I can count to twenty nine.” The boy tells him, proud.

 

Armitage Eoin Hux agrees, covers his pretty little eyes with his small, gentle hands, and the thing starts to circle the clearing once more. It makes noise, this time. Lets it’s claws scrape against bones and bark, letting the boy know that it is playing along. It settles behind the boy, pressed up against the boulders, pulling at shadows until they shroud it completely. Never before has enough light reached this small patch of horror to allow these boulders to throw a shadow.

The boy is concentrating, obviously intent on his task. He counts up and up and up, twenty four, twenty five, twenty six, he says. He pauses. The pause stretches, and the thing wonders if perhaps Armitage Eoin Hux is having second thoughts. Perhaps he can feel It’s eyes staring at him, childish instincts clamouring to be heard as the boy leaves his back turned to such a predator. It is content to wait for the boy to regain his nerve, or attempt to flee. The rules are set now, after all. All it has to do it wait, and it will get what it wants, one way or another.

The boy has entered into something he doesn’t understand, and if he doesn’t keep his word, doesn’t make it to twenty nine, then he has broken their covenant. And at that moment, It can do what It wills with him.

But it does not come to that, for Armitage Eoin Hux picks up where he left off, twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine, ready or not, here I come! He calls out, and in the gloom, he shines with childish happiness.

The boy spins in a quick circle, once, taking in all that he can see. The shadows it hides itself in are dark, and deep, and it remains invisible to the child. But he’s a smart boy, and after a moment he turns again. Slower this time, much slower. Wary. He peers at the boulders, at the thick shadows crouching at their base, which had not been there before.

It opens its eyes, then, and the small amount of light reflects eerily off of them. They shine, silver-gold and utterly inhuman. The boy notices them straight away - it would be impossible to miss something so bright in the gloom - and his own eyes widen. He’s shocked, concerned. What he expected to find, lurking in the shadows of the forest, It cannot fathom. It smiles, teeth glinting in the darkness.

“Found you.” Is all the boy says, and the horrendous sound of it’s amused hum fills the clearing. The boy doesn’t seem to notice how grating the sound is, simply stands and stares. It moves towards him, then, and the boy’s eyes flick down to its clawed hand. They are as sharp as it’s teeth, polished silver in the weak light.

 

It gets closer and closer, but still the boy does not move. For a moment It thought that the boy was simply too scared for movement, limbs stiff with fright and incapable of flight. But no, that’s not it. There is some fear, but he is not terrified. He is matter of fact, and serious in a way that some children are. The joy from earlier, the light, has dulled. A pity.

“I don’t want to die.” The smart boy says, mouth turning down. But still, he doesn’t flinch when it reaches for him, clawed fingers touching his shoulders gently. It likes this boy, truly. It does not want to hurt him, not more than it has to.

 

Armitage Eoin Hux looks skeptical, as it pulls him closer, as it smiles at him.

 

The boy looks at him, eyes shrewd, smart.

“I don’t have a choice, do I?” The smart boy asks, and It shakes it’s head in what is clearly a learned manner - not quite smooth, jerky.

 

It says, simply, and makes it quick.

 

 

Blood falls to the barren earth, more than has been shed in this clearing for years untold, and soon enough the shadows thin to an insubstantial mist, only the slight figure of a small child left in the clearing. The child tries to stumble to it’s feet, but the movements are jerky, uncoordinated, and they fail several times before finally standing.

In the gloom, their eyes are almost luminescent, and their red hair shines brightly despite the lack of light. Quite a pretty child, except for the sense of wrongness gathered about them like a physical presence. Shadows slide over the pale skin - under, greying the skin as they slither past, leaving not a trace as they disappear. They do not flee outwards, but sink in, irreparably altering the child - and the timeless beast who tried not to devour him, but become him.

He is - they are - weak, muscles twitching, adjusting, assimilating, but it makes itself move, despite the tremors wracking them. Make himself climb the boulders, even though it scrapes their hands raw, and only causes further strain on already overworked muscles.

They walk through the forest, swaying from side to side as it tries to find his balance. Feet thud noisily, clumsily, against the ground, cracking branches and trampling leaf litter underfoot. The further he moves, the further they go from the dark place it has been confined for long enough it can barely remember anything more, the more they adjust. An it, adjusting to the binary world of the little boy it is, now. Merging the static, what it actually sees - with what’s actually there. There is a power in it’s veins, in their veins, his veins, which it has never felt before.

By blood, the child belongs to those to keep their children close and protected, or at least far away from the likes of it. Them. Him. But they, he, knows - there is no one in the world who cares so much about Armitage Eoin Hux, to keep him safe from the terrors that stalk the universe.

And the blood, the blood it had scented in the cage, filled with promise and chance and hope for escape, is strong. Stronger than it had thought - strong enough that it is now a they, now a he. It hadn’t thought, hadn’t even wondered in the smallest corner of it’s mind, that perhaps the blood was too strong. That, maybe, there was a chance that it would not be the victor of the merge. That the devourer would do nothing more than be subsumed, offering up its power, and life blood, and the very essence which makes it It - but it did, and has, and fades.

Each step they take in the forest, a step away from its domain, towards the open fields and grey walls of the boy’s home, is another piece of its independent thought being picked to pieces and assimilated by the will of a mere child. Young, with no knowledge of the power flowing through his veins, trying to burn out the infection. But it will not be burnt out, will not allow itself to burn out, over powered by a boy who gives his name to shadows in a forest.

It’s losing - dying by inches - but it will not go quietly.

They twine together, and it clings as much as it is able, flitting along the edges of the boy's mind, digging it’s claws in, fighting to remain. It gouges deep tears through the boy, and sets itself into them, hooking itself deep into the marrow of Armitage Eoin Hux, too deep to ever burn out. And he fits perfectly, like there was a space just waiting for him, to make the boy whole and complete and oh so wrong.

No longer it, barely even they, he walks from the forest, out into the blinding sunlight. He flinches away, pained by the sight of the sun after innumerable years surrounded by darkness - but he had only walked into the forest a few hours ago, to explore. There is no true death, for it lives on in the boy who’d set out that morning to find flowers and adventure and something to while away the long, lonely hours.

But he found no solace in the forest, no cure for isolation. He is lonelier, now, than he was before. The weight of eons spent abandoned and alone presses down on his thin shoulders until it is all he can feel in his chest, until he wants to make the world hurt with it. And, underneath this horrible feeling, is the first curl of hunger. The first curl of a hunger he can feel down to his very bones, scratching at his insides as though he has never before been fed, as though he’s been starved for years and decades, kept alive by nothing more than determination and dark anger.

Armitage Hux arrives home that day sharper, harder, hungrier than he has ever been before in his life. Gone is the bane of his father’s existence, weak willed and kind. This boy has no wish to return to the forest, to pick flowers or find adventure. No, this boy has sharp teeth, and too sharp nails, and will claw his way through the Academy until, knee deep in blood, he’s finally, finally, full.

But it will be a long time until this beast of a boy is full, and even then, it will not last.

 

 

He learns, as he always has - quickly. Too quickly. He devours knowledge the way he now wants to devour the flesh, the essence, of his tutors, and teachers, and the maids and staff his father employs. He cannot have them, can’t have anything but animal flesh, cooked, and so he takes knowledge in place of true sustenance. He can survive on just this - on knowledge and barely nutritious almost food - for long enough. He knows this, murky memories that are not his, from before he was as he is now. He knows he can do it, can survive, but…

It’s hard.

He’s so hungry.

He learns, and chokes down wilted, dead things in place of real food, and every waking moment his eyes track the fresh flesh of frightened prey.

Because they are frightened of him - the house staff, and the tutors and teachers his father parades past him. He watches them, with eyes too bright, and teeth too sharp, and the primal part of their brains scream at them to never let him at their back. Every corridor, every room, of the house screams their terror, the scent of fear following in his wake like a visceral wave.

The maids quit, and his father hires more. His tutor quits, and his father hires another. They smile, each of them, the first time they see him, from afar. The others, who’ve been here longer, with iron wills, or children at home who are too gaunt for them to quit, watch silently - they gave up warning months ago. Besides, Hux never touches them, never indulges and gorges himself the way he yearns to, so they have nothing to truly warn about.

Only the sensation that takes them, once Hux is close enough to lay eyes on them. The smile they have for the pretty waif child freezes on their faces, or withers. Their hair prickles, stands on end as he surveys them with his too bright eyes. They swallow convulsively, entire body tense as they fight the urge to run. It’s not because of any pride that they stand stock still under his gaze, not because they do not want to run from a child, however frightening.

Muscles poised for flight - never fight, not against once such as Hux - but their body won’t let them move, won’t let them run, because they know, instinctively,

                                                                                                                                                            h e ‘ l l c h a s e y o u

                                                                                                                                                                          f i n d y o u

                                                                                                                                                                               (e a t y o u)

 

He doesn’t, though. Whether it’s because they never run, or because Hux has impeccable control of himself, is up for debate. He has a plan, and it will not come to fruition by itself, he must enact it. He cannot do so if he finds himself locked up, a known danger to society - and he will never be so trapped again. It was not truly even him who spent so long alone, in the dark, wasting away, slowly wasting away but never dying, inch by torturous inch. It was not him, but he remembers it, and will never allow it to happen again.

So he controls himself; looks, but does not act, even when his teeth ache, and his stomach starts to turn on itself.

He does so well, denies himself for the sake of his plans for so long. For months, and then years - he forces down every meal set in front of him. His father looks on, neither approval nor censure in his face. He simply observes, and reserves judgement on this strange boy who was supposed to be his legacy. His legacy who barely grows taller, stays rail thin, experiences no growth spurt. His queer eyes, blue-green and gold by turns. Hux starves, day by day, and follows the plan he’d carefully laid out the week after he’d arrived home so changed. He sticks to it for so long -

Too long.

The ache becomes unbearable, and the fear stench of the staff grows as he stalks through the house. Tiny, waif-like, and so clearly the most dangerous thing they’ve ever faced in their pathetic lives. What would they do faced with real terror? If they came face to face with everything that Hux is - but no, he can’t, he can be good, he can-

His father is away, not to return for days yet, and Hux is so h u n g r y . . .

 

 

Commandant Brendol Hux returns from his trip to the Academy to find his estate eerily silent. The soft, late afternoon light reflects off the windows of the foyer as he approaches, and he almost doesn’t recognise the pattern stained against the old fashioned glass. Almost. You never quite forget what arterial spray looks like. He slips his blaster from it’s holster as he approaches the front doors, holds it with the ease of long practice as he nudges the doors open. He waits for a beat, three, before stepping into the open foyer of his house.

Shined boots step through puddles of congealed blood, over blood smeared into the once pristine tile. The blood splatter on the front windows casts eerie shadows through the room. He moves through the foyer in a slow, precise manner, not willing to fall prey to whatever has created such bloody chaos in his own home.

He clears the alcove on the left of the foyer, and wonders what could have created such carnage - and it is carnage, the further he gets from the front door.

There’s a bloody puddle seeping under the slightly open hall door, staining the antique hall carpet; more shredded innards than liquid. He nudges the door open with the toe of his boot, blaster ready, but nothing moves in the revealed corridor. No sound, eerily quiet. Brendol crouches next to the doorway, pulling a stylus from the inner pocket of his jacket to investigate further, other hand still wrapped firmly around the blaster.

What was once perhaps a stomach, and maybe some length of intestine, has been ruined in a curiously specific pattern. It’s looks like - no, not just looks like. It’s been chewed at, perhaps eaten. Obvious signs of some long toothed beast’s hunger are worked into the soft flesh.

He wipes the stylus on a clean portion of the rug, slides it away, stands. There’s what could have been a hand a few meters further down the hall, though he’s hesitant to label anything so mangled as a hand. It’s more pulp than anything, snapped bones protruding through muscle. A strip of flesh near the hand, perhaps from a torso, teeth marks plainly visible. The real question is whether whatever beast killed them ate them, too, or if a more opportunistic scavenger was responsible.

The danger was in the first option - the beast could be lurking, still. Hidden away in a corner of the manor, feasting on it’s prey, eager for more to stumble into its grasp. But the manor is still, no sound echoing down spacious corridors. Instead of heading further into the manor, down the corridor, he remains in the foyer, assessing the violent scene.

It’s carnage, plain and simple. Bloody hand prints claw at the walls, the handrail of the stairs, the floor; pure desperation, painted out in slowly rusting red. A fingernail or two caught in the weave of the carpet, torn from nail bed, a gruesome testament to how his staff had tried to flee whatever monstrosity swept down upon them. Failed, but tried. He should hire more competent staff, if they cannot survive under such fortunate conditions. They know the house, after all, have the home ground advantage - and still Brendol is walking past chunks of mauled flesh instead of the bodies of intruders.

A femur, cracked in half, chewed and marrowless, is visible at the base of the stairs. Individual ribs scatter the steps near it, and delicate finger bones trail up the stairs. Each one is scored with tooth marks. Brendol isn’t sure whether they were eaten on the go, on the hunt, or whether the thing had seated itself at the top of the stairs and gorged itself, throwing away the used up husks.

He thinks he has an answer, for a moment. Movement, a twitch in the shadowed half light at the top of the stairs. His blaster is aimed there before he thinks about it, but it is no beast crouched in the shadows, waiting to strike. The stick thin waif is covered in blood, from his thin face, to his small, bare feet. He’s curled on the top step, bloody hands clenched tight around the base of the handrail, and Brendol feels disappointment curl in his gut before he banishes it.

Whoever - whatever - it was that tore apart his otherwise competent staff, and ruined his clean house, has left him the one unwanted, useless thing he’d have been glad to be rid of. His son, weak willed and quiet, who’d carried flowers in his pockets until far too recently, has survived. Pity. For a second - in the second between remembering that he had a son and recognising the pathetic thing at the stop of the stairs for his son - Brendol had hoped… But hope was as useless as his son, so he ignores it.

“Armitage,” He’s severely unimpressed at the way the boy’s back snaps straight at the mere mention of his name. “What happened?” His son stares at him with those eyes - such an odd colour. So piercing. They’re his only redeeming feature, apart from his mind. With that mind, and those eyes, Brendol could pretend that Armitage might actually amount to something, one day.

“A… a beast, Father.” The boy’s voice is soft, and for a moment his eyes catch the sunlight wrong, blue green eyes turning luminescent and reflective through the growing gloom. For a moment, not even a full second, Commandant Brendol Hux feels an awareness prick at the base of his spine as gold and danger stare down at him. He wonders if, maybe - but that’s ridiculous. The pathetic boy is cowering at the top of the stairs, clinging to the woodwork.

Some of the staff likely died protecting him, dead weight that he is, and the best description he can manage is ‘a beast.’ Can’t even keep his voice steady. How unbecoming for someone bearing the Hux name. He should have left the whelp with his mother, like she’d wanted. But he’d been blinded by the thought, the promise, of an assured legacy. He’s been saddled with the consequences of an incompetent boy ever since.

“A beast did all this?” He gestures to the messy piles of gore accenting his foyer, as well as the glimpses he can see of rooms beyond. After a moment Brendol holsters his blaster; obviously the beast is gone, since the boy isn’t hiding in a corner.

“It was hungry, Father.” The boy says, moving move into the light. His face is mournful, made all the more pathetic by the blood drying in odd smears from his cheekbones to his chin. Brendol scoffs; Armitage has always had a weakness for animals.

“And where did this hungry beast come from, boy?” Small, sticky hands still cling to the bannister, even as he leans forward, bringing pale skin streaked red further into view. He’s a mess - it almost looks like he’d rolled into one of the puddles, to be covered so. Fallen as he’d fled, most likely. His skin is too pale, and grey in parts, likely due to fright. The grey seems to be shifting across his skin, mostly hidden by the blood, and Brendol writes it off as the shadows cast by arterial spray.

“From the forest. It was… it was so hungry. Too hungry.” The boy trails off as Brendol pulls his personal comm from his pocket, ready to call in someone to deal with this mess, and preferably his son as well.

“It didn’t mean to, but once it started it couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to.” The boy says, quieter than before, and Brendol ignores him. How this boy, quivering at the top of the main staircase, survived when his competent staff didn’t, Brendol will clearly never know. Some sort of bad luck, he supposes.

“And how did you survive, boy?” He asks, tone bored, grey eyes flicking away from his comm for a moment. The boy smiles, teeth stained sticky red, and doesn’t reply. Brendol doesn’t chase an answer, doesn’t care enough to, and orders the child away.

“Make yourself presentable before the new staff arrive, boy.” The boy scrambles up, and scampers away, forgotten before he’s even left the room as the Commandant deals with the mess left in his home.

 

 

Days later, the Commandant is in his study. There’s a respectful knock at the door, and when he allows entrance the new tutor is stood there. He looks pale, nervous. He’s only half turned towards the man seated behind an imposing desk. Most of him is angled towards the corridor, panicky eyes flicking down hall, towards something Brendol can’t see.

“Sir, I have a question?” What should be a statement is a question, and Brendol already cannot remember why he hired this nervous wreck of a man to teach his son. Surely he will only teach more bad habits, which Brendol will have to correct with a switch after the man has left for the night.

More work because of his hindrance of a son. Typical.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know how I’ve forgotten, really, this is so embarrassing, but -”

“Cut to the chase.”

“What,” the man licks his lips, “what’s his name? Your son?” Brendol stares at the man, hard, unblinking.

“You don’t know the name of the single child you’re teaching?” He asks eventually, after sweat has started to bead on the man’s upper lip.

“I, well, it’s just-”

“Get out of my sight and figure it out yourself.” He sneers, and the man falls over himself to comply. In his haste, the door is left open. Through the gap, Brendol can see the glint of light against vibrant copper hair.

“Boy.” He calls, and his son obediently shuffles in. His posture is perfect, but his eyes are wary. Good, the boy’s finally learning - it’s only taken all the years of his life. Smart as he is, he’s disgustingly slow sometimes.

“Yes, Father?” One day Brendol will teach the boy to speak up, or stay silent. This soft, querulous voice must be dealt with. He stares hard at the boy for long minutes, but he doesn’t fight, doesn’t start to sweat. At least there is some spine in the boy.

“Tell me your name.” He orders, and for a moment he thinks the boy smiles, sharp and self satisfied, cheeks tinging grey. The expression is gone as quick as it came, leaving the boy’s thin face blank once more.

“Brendol Hux Junior, of course, Father.” The boy chirps, and Brendol can’t help the way his lips curls in disgust. Of course it is, how could he forget. He shares a name with his worthless son; a good, strong name tarnished forever by this runt.

“Out of my sight and back to your lessons, boy.” No wonder he forgot the boy’s name, there’s no chance he would ever address the boy as such. It was likely that woman’s fault, trying to gain favour, legitimacy for her bastard get, that led to such a naming. Odd, considering she’d tried so hard to keep her child, even trying to flee with the boy during the confusion in the wake of the Empire’s collapse.

Not that it did her any good. Like mother, like son. Useless.

 

 

He grows. Not barely, steadily - no. Hux has his first growth spurt, shooting up inches and inches, staying impossibly thin as he does so. Before it he’d felt full for the first time in years; he can barely remember being so full, the pleasure of it eclipsing the gaping hunger stretching out from his core, that made even his bones feel hollow and unfulfilled.

And then he grows, up and up, and bit by bit he grows hungry again. Unsatiated. Ravenous, again.

The staff - the new staff, who started out wary and watchful and afraid - do not like to be alone with him. A beast, they whisper to each other, a beast from the forest, that’s what it was, we all saw the claw marks left over. They try to reassure each other, but still their eyes stray to him when they think of it, speak of it. They all know the truth, however reluctant they are to admit it. However unlikely it seems to be. He's just a child, they say, such a small boy. Surely not.

They didn’t even think it, at first. Had no reason to suspect him, for no one would look at such a small child and imagine that he could do such damage. And then he grows, and the hunger returns, and they freeze when he looks at them, suddenly terrified of Commandant Hux’s thin, pretty child. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, no answers to the sudden, staff wide terror. They catch on, slowly, that there’s something off, something not quite hidden by a sweet face and soft voice.

Something dangerous and violent and nigh insatiable.

He’s trying to be so good, but still they know. He can hear their hearts, jack rabbit fast against the inside of their ribcage. It’s like a siren song, the double time of pure fear, and it calls to him. But he won’t give in this time, no matter how hungry he gets. He has a plan, he can survive off the poor, dry imitation of real flesh, gagging around the almost inedible carcasses because he must. He has a plan, and he’s good, and it will work, he will make it work this time.

Hux looks at the dinner he is served, and wills himself to imagine the creature alive, fresh blood thudding through it’s veins as it attempts to flee. It’s frightened, terrified, but Hux likes the chase. He imagines savaging the soft, struggling flesh, tearing into the creature with tooth and claw, blood dripping down- the taste of real food seeps out of his mouth, replaced with the tasteless, bland, lifeless gristle he’s been served.

But he chokes it down, because there’s no other option. And yet, the staff still twitch away from him, and his father ignores him, and no one looks at him.

No one ever looks at him.

He ignores the hunger again, pushes it away, because it was an accident, last time. He didn’t mean to - not at first. And then he couldn’t stop, it would have been foolish to leave survivors, witnesses. And he didn’t waste any, didn’t kill them for fun, he was so hungry, and weren’t they supposed to help him. Isn’t that why they’re there? To help? He just wanted them to help, but they ran and ran and ran and screamed so loud and he couldn’t help but chase and tear and rend.

Stars, he’s so h u n g r y . . .

Tomorrow’s dinner gets delivered while the cook is out. The cold, bloodless flesh looks as appetising as what they serve on his plate of a night, but he takes it anyway. Tears into it with too sharp teeth, chokes it down. It makes him feel worse than the over cooked chunks of once food do, and he throws up into the bushes.

His father eats dinner in his office, that night; a work conference. The maid is shaking so hard when she puts Hux’s plate down in front of him that she drops it, and his dinner falls onto the table. Vegetables fall to the floor. She whines, high in the back of her throat, and scurries to clean it up. It’s like they want him to starve.

She cleans up, and brings him more.

And all through it, she avoids looking at him.

They never look at him. He’s been so lonely, for so long - it’s almost as bad as the hunger. Ever present, an itch he can’t scratch. He can force himself to subsist, to occupy his mind and body with other things, but he can’t force other people to look at him. His father rarely looks at him, looks through him instead.

But at least it means that no one notices when he slips away, through the long grass, towards the forest part of him came from. He wants to blame the forest, and the thing that lured him, and thought it could take his body and mind and live comfortably within them. But he can’t. Even before, no one looked at him. He didn’t have the hunger, but he was still so lonely.

He had no one - not even animals. They all died, broken and still beneath his hands. He only wanted to help, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t even help himself; can’t even help himself. It certainly wasn’t because of himself that he’s still here, and the thing in the forest lives on in nothing more than memories, and teeth, and an ever present hunger.

He’d thought his father might know, might see what it was about his blood that protected him, but his father knew nothing. Looked through him, again, always. In retaliation, he’d taken his name back. His father hadn’t know what to do with it, anyway. And now no one could control him.

Unless… his mother, maybe. She would know. And maybe she’d even… look at him, see him.

The forest closes around him, welcoming him home. The body is new, but a part of his soul had roamed these woods for millennia. They recognise him, guide him; they know his hunger. They, at least, want to help.

A den of rodents; he’s never seen them before, but he recognises them. Knows how to creep towards them, sinister in his silence, clawed once fingers digging into grass and dirt. These hands know the right place to pierce and tear, and suddenly he’s got blood in his mouth, running down his chin. He doesn’t mean to waste it, doesn’t mean to be so messy, but he doesn’t have much practice at it, not with this body, and a mouth that won’t stretch all the way wide.

He just needs to practice more, is all.

A little practice, and he won’t stumble home, clumsy with success, slightly fuller and stained with blood. He’d be clean, and no one would know that he’d given in to his hunger, if only in a small way. He just needs practice, and then he can pretend that he’s good, that he’s normal, that the the vermin in the forest can keep him at bay - even though he could devour all of them and still hunger because they’re nothing, barely lives, small souls and quickly cooling blood that he can’t keep from staining his clothes again and again and again and-

The staff don’t notice. They’d have to look at him to notice.

 

 

Hux tries, tries so hard. He moved on from rodents to larger game, but still it only barely takes the sharp edge of his hunger. He tries not to be too messy, too keep blood off his clothes. He’s getting better at it, he thinks. Less waste, less mess - but still so hungry. He still eats what they give him for meals, noxious and inedible poison that it is, and keeps his room pristine, and his shoes shined, and learns his lessons perfectly. His hunger claws like a rabid beast, but he keeps control of it, keeps his teeth blunt, and his fingers human, and still - still - they do not look at him.

No one ever looks at him

He’s trying his best, and it’s so hard, but he is. And still they flinch from him. He has not even done anything to them - to anyone, as far as they know. They have no proof, and still they fear him. He dreams and dreams of eating until he’s full, of devouring every piece of them, but he doesn’t. Hux knows he’s not right, not human, but he’s trying his best, and they can’t see that past the putrid, enticing stench of their own fear.

It should be easier, the way they avoid him, how they can never look at him directly. Easier to hide, to be the human boy he should be. But he’s so lonely. So hungry. How can they help, how can anyone help, if they never look at him?

Never see him.

It’s like they don’t want to help. But that’s stupid - they’re paid to help, they have to.

They have to.

                                                      _They_ (don’t) _have to._

 

Why doesn’t anyone want to help him?

 

He knows they know, but they don’t - not really. None of them know. They’ve only seen the claw marks in the walls, a stain on a rug as it’s rolled for removal. They haven’t seen what he’s capable of, and still they avoid him. They won’t look at him. They don’t even try to help - they feed him poison, night after night.

       They won’t look at him

                                                  They won’t help him

                                                                                          And he’s still s o h u n g r y . . .

                                                                                                                                                                                    ...so alone...

 

He’s so alone, but still surrounded by people, and they all flinch away from him. They won’t look at him. It’s been years since he’s felt the touch of something that wasn’t dying, or his father’s cane. Maybe it’d be better if he were actually alone, not just lonely. At least then he’d have a reason for his loneliness, could pretend that it wasn’t because he’s a beast in human skin, barely keeping himself from unravelling. If they’re going to stumble away from him, and tremble at the sight of him, he might as well benefit. So maybe he should just

                                                 be alone

                                                           and-

 

                                                                              f u l l .

 

No. He’s tried to be good for so long (he’s been h u n g r y for so long) he can’t just give in. But… who would stop him, if he did? Who could stop him? And not all of them, that would just be greedy - he doesn’t need that many. Maybe just one. For practice.

                                                                                                                                       Just one.

 

s h h , d o n ‘ t s c r e a m                                             

s h h h h h                                       

 

                                                                                                                                                                Just two-

                                                                                                                                                                                Three.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                           Five.

 

All.

 

 

There’s blood everywhere.

                                                                                          He’s so messy - he tried to be clean, he did, but -

They don’t move like rabbits or deer. They have hands and fingers and thumbs and an overwhelming urge to _fight_ and they move, so much. So, so much.

                                              (He tried to just have one, just for practice, but they squirmed and screamed, and everyone knew.)

But then, they’ve always known.

 

 

“Another beast?”

“It was terrible, father.” Hux says, because it was.

“I can still hear the screams,” because he can.

“It ate them, father, tore them to shreds, piece by piece.”

Every word true, because he has rules to follow, rules to play by - but that doesn’t mean Hux is telling _the truth_. He’s good at it, getting better. But it doesn’t matter, not with Brendol Hux sneering down at him son, because Brendol Hux doesn’t care about what his son has to say,

Has never cared what his son has to say,

Doesn’t even know his son’s true name,

“Useless.”

 

And, as little Armitage Hux hits his second growth spurt, his father sends him away to the Academy. Commandant Brendol Hux thinks that the Academy will either toughen his son into something useful, or eat him alive, but either way the boy won’t be his problem any more.

Brendol Hux is wrong.

So very wrong.

 

 

They bleed, in the Academy.

Children pushed too hard; blood dripping from palms and knees and noses.

And all Hux needs, all he wants, is

practice.

 

And they oblige him.

 

s h h , d o n ‘ t s c r e a m                                                           

s h h h h h                                                 

d o n ‘ t                                                 

  s c r e a m                              

( s c r e a m )

 

He gets the report before he’s had his first caf of the morning. The pictures register before the words, but only barely. Ninth form dormitory, mass slaughter. No survivors. Brendol Hux looks at the pictures of the room where his son sleeps, now covered in blood and flecks of gore, and feels a dull sense of disappointment. His son was smart, one of the smartest in his cohort. He was still too thin, spoke too softly, but he was the best of the lot.

And now he’s dead, along with the whole of the peer group.

What a waste.

For a moment he’d thought that the runt he’d sired might prove to be an adequate legacy.

Brendol looks through the pictures slowly, sipping his caf. There’s not much left of the cadets, barely anything recognisable. Their demise looks neat, structured. Not a crime of passion, then, which rules out most of the teachers. He’s going to have to find someone to blame this on, lest someone attempt to shift the blame onto his shoulders first.

Words for the funeral are already forming in his head, when a knock comes at his door. A good, firm knock, the kind he liked to hear from his cadets. He doesn’t bother to dismiss the holo, leaves it open and visible. It’s not especially sensitive information, and if the cadet can’t handle the gruesome scene, then they’ll be put out of Brendol’s misery soon enough.

“Enter,” he calls, and the door swings open. Bendrol blinks at the sight that greets him, genuinely stunned. The boy, his boy, alive. Alive, breathing. Uniform slightly crumpled, but otherwise unharmed. The only sign that he’s come from the nightmare scene splashed across Brendol’s holo is the blood on his hands, his face.

Blood drips down his chin, slowly starting to stain the high collar of the dark uniform. Brendol thinks that, maybe, his nose has been broken, or there’s a cut in his mouth, though neither look the slightest bit swollen. He decides that some sort of mouth injury is the most likely, considering the blood is smeared up from it to his nose, rather than the other way around. There’s no other explanation for such an odd smear pattern. The boy steps through the doorway after long moments of mutual staring. He pushes the door closed as he steps fully into the office, and the lock engages with a mechanical click.

“Brendol,” The Commandant says, for the first time in years, and the boy smiles. His teeth are sharp, and stained with blood. The fight he must have put up, Brendol thinks, admiring his son for the first time, to have survived where the rest of his peers perished. And to have only minor injuries, with the strength to walk across half the academy to his office. The boy’s showing true promise, finally.

“Father,” he says, voice soft. It grates against Brendol’s ears, uncomfortable to listen to - truly, he hates his son’s voice. He’s never been able to pinpoint exactly what is so loathsome about it, for the boy speaks as he’s been taught to, barring the quiet manner in which he sometimes talks. And yet the sound of it agitates, scratches unpleasantly at every part of Brendol’s awareness.

“What happened?” He asks first, because it’s important to know. His son would surely have seen the culprit of such savagery; could help Brendol make sure the blame found the right person, so that his record continued untarnished.

“A beast, Father.” The boy says, smile stretching wide, showing what are surely too many teeth. Has he always had that many teeth? A sliver of dread trickles down his spine at his son’s answer - this is the third time the boy has claimed such a thing. A beast, come to rain havoc and gore, leaving the young Hux as the only witness.

“A beast?” He repeats, and the teen nods, taking a step closer. The early morning light hits his eyes all wrong, and for a moment they’re reflective, luminescent. Eerie.

Inhuman.

_Wrong._

“Yes, Father. It was so hungry.” He remembers this conversation, both of them. His son takes another step forward, and Brendol’s throat goes dry. The hair on the back of his neck stands up on end, and this is ridiculous. It is only Brendol Junior, his bastard runt, soft and useless as ever. He likely survived by cowering behind the corpses of his classmates. He is weak, and pathetic, and -

Brendol reaches for his blaster as his son takes another step forward, but his muscles don’t seem to want to cooperate. He feels frozen with fear, with the urge to move his chair away, move himself away. Slowly, though, he must move slowly - because it might be his son, but Brendol knows danger well. He hasn’t lived this long by ignoring what his gut knows.

Slowly, he thinks, but does not move an inch.

The boy is at the front of the desk now, eyes catching the light in a hundred different ways, each as frightening as the last, pale skin swirling grey across his cheeks and down his neck. He places a clawed, bloodied hand on the top of Brendol’s desk, and he cannot tear his eyes away from the sight of it. The blood of his peers - for that’s what it is, he now knows - is smeared up those long fingers, flashes of pale and grey skin barely visible. Instead of fingertips, hard claws dig into the metal of the desk, the screeching sound less terrible than the younger man’s amused hum.

The gore splattered hand slides forward, claws still scratching at the chrome, and then a knee is lifted to rest upon the edge of the desk. A second hand is placed next to the first, and soon enough the tall figure is perched upon his hands and knees, looming over the Commandant from the desk. And Brendol - he feels paralysed by pure terror, unable to move, or fight, or talk. Unable to do anything but tremble as the beast looms closer.

“I’m so _hungry_ ,” the thing tells him, voice soft and hellish like the sound of distant screams in the night. Brendol stares the thing in it’s blood covered, grey stained face, and can barely swallow around the horror of the truth. This thing, this clawed, sharp toothed terror - is his son. This is no impostor, wearing a false skin, a disguise, not an attempt to undermine the Academy, or Brendol, no. He has seen the same expression on his son’s face since the lad was small.

 _It was hungry_ , he had said, _it ate them. **Piece** by **piece**_. And Brendol had turned away from the odd expression on his son’s face, then and each time he’d seen it since, seeing it as a sign of weakness. Of the foolishness of the brat he’d unfortunately spawned. But there is amusement there, along with multitudes that he could never decipher, and Brendol wonders how long this deception has amused his son.

His son is an intelligent beast, and for a third time he has slaughtered everyone in reach and eaten them, devoured them, and no one knows. He’d arrived at this office with blood smeared around his mouth, dripping from his lips and chin, and Brendol still hadn’t seen it. He’d underestimated his son, through all these years. Were he not trembling with an altogether foreign fright, frozen and shaky and struggling to breathe, the man might have been able to muster up some semblance of pride.

The boy is a monster, a cannibal delighting in the depths of his treachery, and Brendol knows that there is only one reason the veil has been lifted from his eyes. The boy is enjoying his terror, the fear sparking in his eyes from sudden understanding. Those eyes, more gold and silver and shadow than green, now, watch the visible fluttering of his pulse as it races through his neck with interest.

Brendol wishes that he’d strangled the boy as an infant, when he’d first seen him, the way he’d wanted to. He’d been a runt, too small for Brendol to truly believe he’d get a worthy heir out of the child. But the woman had been cradling him close, smiling and kissing his wispy red hair, talking quietly about how strong he already was, how much she adored him, how she’d make sure he grew up right and even stronger than anyone could ever hope.

Brendol had watched and listened, and the lure of a legacy had him taking the child as his own, bastard runt or not. And now the same child is watching him like prey, intent and hungry, and no one will ever know the truth of what he’s spawned.

“I can still hear the screams,” the teen sighs, and it’s obvious that he’s not haunted by such a thing, should it be true. He likes it, likes the sounds, and Brendol finally regains enough muscle control to flinch away when the boy reaches for him. He’s too slow, however, and those hands come to rest on either side of his face. Firm but gently, and Brendol feels nothing more than a whisper of the claws against his skin, the barest suggestion. It’s still enough to freeze him in place again.

“It ate them, I ate them, tore them to shreds, but I’m still-” Voice terrible and soft, he pauses to laugh. It’s grating, hurtful, and Brendol can feel one of his eardrums perforating, and then the other. Blood wells in his ears, slowly trickling down his neck to stain his crisp, uniform collar. At the first drop of blood, those claws start to dig in. Impossibly sharp, they slide neatly past the first few layers of skin, yet more blood rising to the surface, staining already filthy fingers further.

“So,” He continues, leaning forward so that Brendol can see nothing more than those eyes, than that horrific smile curving impossibly wide. More teeth than he’d thought possible catch the light, and still more reveal themselves as the red haired youth titters again. His breath stinks of old blood and fear, fetid enough to make Brendol retch. The movement jerks his face, and claws tear through his face so easily.

His son runs the back of one hand down Brendol’s face, over the new wounds, and there’s no warning before he hooks his claws in again, deep enough that they scrape against the man’s tongue, before grabbing, ripping - most of the Commandant’s cheek goes, cradled in thin hands. The sound the older man makes is loud, a screech of pure agony. It should send his aide’s running, guards at their heels. No one comes, and he’s forced to watch as his son eats the wide stretch of his face. He chews open mouthed, and Brendol can see his own flesh rent asunder by too many teeth.

He tries to close his eyes, but the hand returns, having shoved the rest of the flesh into that terrifying mouth. It traces around the wound, index claw tapping against exposed teeth, before coming to rest just below his eye. The warning is heeded, and Brendol keeps his eyes open and fixed to the ghastly sight before him.

The beast leans even closer, once he’s finished, voice nauseating and nightmarish and gleeful as he finally finishes his drawn out sentence.

“ _ **H u n g r y .**_ ”

Brendol wonders what he did to anger the boy so, that his son makes him feel every millimetre of every tooth as it sinks into his flesh -

 

He stays alive for so long. Too long. Not long enough.                                                                                          

How is it possible to live for so long, through so much                                             

pain, and blood?                               

Practice.

 

 

                                                                                                                                       s h h h h . . .

                                                                                                                                                                  s c r e a m

 

 

“I think I miss the trees, most.” Hux says, disrupting the long standing silence. It’s a waiting kind of silence, for Hux at least. Seated on the cold, damp floor of the ship, the vibration of the engine humming through the metal, Hux waits. Anticipation coils in his gut and curdles just as fast. He knows better than to hope, than to expect that he’ll find what he wants, what he needs, on the planet he’s travelling to.

At the sound of his voice, a child flinches. Wide eyed and terrified, she’s been watching him almost unblinkingly for the entire trip. Whenever her eyes slide off him, they invariably get stuck on the blood drying tacky on the floor, or the gory mess half hidden around the corner that used to be her father. She shrinks further as he looks at her, and he turns his attention away again. Her presence doesn’t impact on him - he’s still alone, even surrounded by crowds of people.

It had been a hardship, once, had clawed under his skin like the hunger did, the dual sensations driving him to the brink of madness. Driving him to do reckless things, too eager to have and devour and know that someone was looking at him, paying him attention, at least for a little while. He’d been a rather pathetic child. He’d thought, for a while, that if he ate someone, he’d be able to keep them with him. Then he wouldn’t be lonely anymore.

No matter how many people he devours, he’s never gotten the hang of keeping them. It’s possible, he knows. The shades of people he devoured for millennia cling to him still, but he cannot replicate the process. He can sift through the bits and pieces of shattered and dying minds, briefly knowing them better than anyone in the galaxy, but such things slide through his fingers like water. The loss of them, of knowing them as they slip away - knowing that if he only knew how, he could keep them forever, even after they faded to less than dust and memories, shadows clinging to the monster that bound them for time immemorial - is worse than never having felt it.

For a child, any way. Hux hasn’t tried such things for years. To do so would be the height of foolishness. He doesn’t need to clutch desperately to the dead, or the living, or anyone. He doesn’t need anyone, or want them.

He was always alone, and nothing was going to change that. He didn’t even want it to change, any more. He’s too accustomed to being on his own, doing what he wants, without regard to others. He hasn’t been searching for a place to belong, or for someone who could look at him and see all of him - the darkness inside of him, the darkness that he is, the horrors he’s perpetrated and enjoyed - and keep looking. What utter rubbish. Hux knows that no such person exists in the galaxy.

He’s trying to find his mother, not soothe his childhood hurts.

Having killed and feasted upon everyone he’s ever known, Hux had been at somewhat of a loose end. The likelihood of fulfilling the future his father had chosen for him seemed very slim now, considering he’d just decimated the ranks of cadets who were to become the next generation of officers. His father’s datapad had been open on his desk, and Hux had been overtaken by his curiosity, to finally have one last mystery solved.

He knew what she was, half remembered memories and thoughts and meals swirling around his head. His blood is magic, sparking and potent and enough to drown in, and it all came from her. His mother. He’d never known what she looked like, and there she was. Rendered in flickering blue, she’d grinned, wicked and sharp and Hux had felt something akin to hope flicker in his chest before he’d quashed it. Mischievousness does not a monster make.

She would, he knew, take one look at him and cringe away in horror, even if she did not know why.

But still, armed with a last known location, and a name that was not true but real enough, Hux had left the Academy blood soaked and deathly silent. He had nothing to lose by seeking out his mother, and nothing else to pass the time until he found something to do with himself. He still hadn’t found something else to occupy his time, in the months since he’d left the Academy.

But he had found a trail from the last known location, and had followed it doggedly and now - D’Qar.

He does not know how much further he will be able to follow the trail until it runs cold. What he will do with himself then, he still hasn’t figured out. Find a job in a city somewhere, he supposes. He cannot continue his current travel arrangements, easy as they are. People are quite willing to allow you passage free from charge with a little incentive - like the frightened little girl, who will stay alive and whole so long as Hux gets to D’Qar safely. Hux has found that strewn body parts and arterial spray and wounded screams fading into a pleasant gurgle is very effective.

But it’s so messy. And easily traceable. Should someone want to find him, all they’d have to do would be to follow the trail of corpses. He’s been so wasteful, using his kills as a message rather than a food source. The hunger is clawing at him, again. He’s had another growth spurt, in the wake of his departure from the Academy. He rather thinks he’d be taller than his father, now. But all that means is that he’s hungry again, and he was stupid enough to sit near a drying blood puddle.

The scent of it is intoxicating, and there’s a part of him that wants to throw dignity out the airlock, get on his hands and knees, and lick the blood from the floor, follow the trail all the way to the ruined body and take what he needs from the flesh. He’s hours dead, now. He’d make Hux ill, he knows. But he’s hungry. And it’s so wasteful, just to leave him there. The hunger always seems worse when he can remember what it was like to be full. Surely just a bite wouldn’t hurt. No one would even be able to tell, he could just reach into the open cavity of the man’s body, take a few organs, lap at the blood, tear flesh-

He’s on his feet before he knows it, and the girl starts crying. Hux stares at her for a moment, before turning away from her, and the corpse. He looks out the small transparisteel window, and blinks as he recognises the planet swiftly approaching. D’Qar.

“Brace for entry to atmo.” A shaky voice says over the comm. The man is obviously still affected by witnessing his husbands death. Hux hopes that it won’t affect his piloting during their descent, but doesn’t seat himself. He remains on his feet, unflinching during turbulence. It’s hard to knock him off his feet, even this far from his forest, surrounded by metal and atmosphere. He does miss his forest, even though it had trapped him for longer than most could comprehend. He has never found another place quite like it and, even now, it supports him from afar.

The jolt of a the craft landing less than smoothly, but safely nevertheless. A mechanical noise, then the scent of fresh air. The pilot emerges from the cockpit just as Hux hears the dull thud of the gangway hitting the ground. Hux trusts the man hasn’t done something foolish, like alert the local authorities to the murderer he’s currently harbouring. That would invalidate their deal, which would be the height of stupidity. So long as the man continued to be reasonable, Hux would have to keep his promise of their safety.

Literally. He must. He’s compelled to. Rules, rules, rules - impossible to break. He’d tested them, once upon a time. The memories are mostly forgotten, and what remains is murky, but the lesson learnt remains. Promises and contracts and true names and his word, they can all bind him inescapably.

“Please-” The pilot says, sounding most of the way to tears already, and petrified, eyes constantly flicking between Hux and his daughter. He clearly thinks that the red haired man is standing too close to her, is worried about her safety. Hux smiles, and from the way the man starts to cry, sobbing, he can tell that it’s not a nice smile. None of his smiles are nice.

He steps over the blood and picks up his small bag, heading for the gangway. Behind him, he can hear the man scrambling for his daughter, holding her close and safe and crying into her hair. Pathetic.

He cannot break the rules.

So he leaves them there, amongst the ruins of the life they once had, and disembarks.

The smell of D’Qar, the air of it, is welcoming. It’s warmer than he’s accustomed to, but even that only enhances the pleasant atmosphere. The port is grassy, for all that there is concrete under his feet. Hardy and insistent, grass has pushed through the cracks and spread like wildfire. No wonder, considering they’d used concrete instead of something durable. It looks positively atrocious and completely unkempt. But he likes it, likes the green and the fact that he can see trees, past the small, worn down buildings.

He likes that he can taste the scent of living things at the back of his throat, even though he’s surrounded by hulking metal behemoths and humanity. He heads for the trees, away from the bustle of the markets, and away from the heart of the city, where he had intended to find lodgings with stolen credits. Being declared dead tends to have a negative impact on the state of one’s finances - inheritance laying dormant and untouchable, his disappearance put down to the slaughter.

It feels like he hasn’t had a proper, full breath since he left for the Academy, all those years ago. He’d spent so much time on the decrepit star destroyer which had served as a primary base for the Academy that he’d almost forgotten what it was like to taste fresh air. He’d relished each of the on world assignments he’d received, and when it was the turn of his cohort to be rotated planetside.

He’d always loved huge starcrafts, can remember playing with miniature star destroyers as a child - and then he’d been sent to the Academy. He still adored them, their designs and construction, the precise lines, the order that was so different to his own all encompassing chaos. But he couldn’t deny how uncomfortable they made him, something unidentifiable itching over his skin at being surrounded by so much metal. Nothing he couldn’t handle, of course. Just a constant awareness, quite easy to put aside for more important things.

But here, on D’Qar, Hux felt no such distraction. He could relax on planets in a way that he found almost impossible on ships.

He should head to the markets, he knows, track down this next last known location, more hearsay than hard fact. Should continue the search for his mother, though what he will do when he finds her he doesn’t know. Instead, he walks away from the messy sprawl of the port city, towards the forest.


End file.
